Sunday, July 31, 2011

The following is from Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) commenting on Speaker John Boehner's blunderous back tracking on the House passed version of Cut, Cap & Balance (CCB) for his own Budget Control Act of 2011.

DeMint goes on to note the obvious shortcoming and failures of Boehner's proposal and how it closely (maybe not so mysteriously) resembles Senator Majority Leader Harry Reids plan.

It's almost as if Boehner only went through the motions on CCB as a show.

I have troubling news. I’m very careful about criticizing my party’s leaders, but what is happening in Washington right now cannot be ignored.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has abandoned the Cut-Cap-Balance Act and is now pushing a new plan that is nearly identical to the one proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

The Boehner-Reid plan gives the President an immediate increase in the debt limit and only promises to cut spending in the future. It violates all three principles of the Cut-Cap-Balance Pledge because it does not substantially cut current spending, it does not truly cap future spending, and it does not require the passage of a strong Balanced Budget Amendment before raising the debt limit.

In short, I oppose the Boehner-Reid plan because it won’t balance the budget and stop the debt that is destroying our country.

The Boehner-Reid Plan

You will hear many claims about this plan over the next few days as it is pushed through the House and Senate. Some of these claims will be true, but many will be false. Here are the facts. The Boehner-Reid plan:

Provides two increases in the debt limit– $900 billion and $1.6 trillion — totaling $2.5 trillion. It gives the President an immediate $900 billion increase given that Congress does not vote to disapprove it. It gives the President another $1.6 trillion increase next year if a bill written by a new Super Committee passes both houses and becomes law.

Reduces spending by only $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.This amount won’t even come close to balancing the budget, as the debt is expected to grow by as much as $10 trillion over the next decade. The plan also reduces spending by only $6 billion in 2012. Considering that our government currently spends $10 billion a day, $6 billion is far too little to cut over the first year of the plan.

Calls for a vote on the Balanced Budget Amendmentbut does not require its passage. Without passage of a strong Balanced Budget Amendment, Congress will never break its addiction to spending.

Makes it virtually impossible to stop the debt limit from going up. The debt ceiling increases can only be stopped if Congress passes a resolution of disapproval and then votes to override the President’s veto with two-thirds support in the House and Senate.

Creates a new, 12-member Super Committee to write another “grand bargain” to reduce the deficit by at least $1.6 trillion. It does not, however, prohibit the Super Committee from writing a bill to raise taxes and destroy jobs. The bill can then be fast-tracked through the House and Senate with no amendments.

Why It Should Be Rejected
After reviewing the details of Boehner-Reid plan, I cannot support it.

It won’t balance the budget and stop the debt. Even if the cuts called for in the plan were real, the debt will still increase by $7 trillion over the next ten years.

It won’t protect our AAA bond rating. According to financial reports, this plan will not reduce long-term spending by enough to prevent a downgrade. If we lose our AAA rating, it will create higher interest rates and cause our debt to grow even faster.

It will likely result in higher taxes that will destroy even more jobs. The unemployment rate is over 9 percent. We cannot afford to lose more jobs when so many Americans are struggling to find work.

Please note the only GOP Congressman from Ohio voting against Boehner's Budget Control Act of 2011 and making himself a target for political retribution, was Congressman Jim Jordan (OH-4). Thank you Congressman Jordan for being your own man and placing the well being of our country over poorly thought out partisan politics that would drive us deeper in debt!

Quickly forgetting they are in D.C. not because of Speaker Boehner, but because of the Tea Parties, the freshmen GOP Congressmen from OH chose to ignore the calls, emails and faxes from most of the Tea Parties in Ohio urging them to VOTE NO on Boehners Plan and voted to support the Boehner/Reid Bill.

After passing the Budget Control Act of 2011(H.R.2693) through the use of political thuggery that would make a SEIU leader proud, it is being reported that House Speaker John Boehner, Senate President Harry Reid & Speaker John Boehner have come to a ‘deal’ over the debt ceiling debacle.

A debt ceiling increase of up to $2.1 to $2.4 trillion (depending on the size of the spending cuts agreed to in the final deal).

They have now agreed to spending cuts of roughly $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

The formation of a special Congressional committee to recommend further deficit reduction of up to $1.6 trillion (whatever it takes to add up to the total of the debt ceiling increase). This deficit reduction could take the form of spending cuts, tax increases or both.

The special committee must make recommendations by late November (before Congress' Thanksgiving recess).

If Congress does not approve those cuts by December 23, automatic across-the-board cuts go into effect, including cuts to Defense and Medicare. This "trigger" is designed to force action on the deficit reduction committee's recommendations by making the alternative painful to both Democrats and Republicans.

A vote, in both the House and Senate, on a balanced budget amendment.

This proposal falls far short of the House passed version of Cut, Cap & Balance, and the far weaker and open ended Boehner "Budget Control Act of 2011."

Votes on this deal are expected sometime today and Senator McConnell has acknowledged the debt ceiling limits are already exceeding those in the above deal.....

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says negotiators are "very close" to nailing down an agreement that would avert a default of the nation's debt obligations.

McConnell tells CNN's "State of the Union" that lawmakers are looking at a $3 trillion package that would raise the debt ceiling in two stages through the elections next year.

Action Alert

Please contact the below GOP Congressional members from Ohio, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and urge them to vote NO on this new proposed plan.

Please tell them to stop playing political games with the financial future and national security of the United States. Ask that without hesitation they act to protect the Full Faith and Credit of the United States, ensure payment of Social Security to our seniors and military.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

In a recent interview on ABC's "Top Line" Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) indicated his support for the short on fact & long on empty promises "Gang of Six" proposal. Senator Portman also supports raising the debt ceiling....

The bipartisan “Gang of Six” proposal on the deficit continues to draw attention from rank-and-file senators, even as House leaders come out in opposition to any plan that includes new revenues as part of a deal.

“It's a step in the right direction,” Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who was budget director under President George W. Bush, told us on ABC’s “Top Line” today. “It's the one effort out there where you've got Republicans and Democrats coming together. And I think it could actually mesh well with what I think is the ultimate solution here with regard to the debt limit increase.”

Portman said he disagrees with those in his party who say it’s not critical to increase the debt ceiling.

Please contact Senator Portman and remind him he was elected to stop the spending addiction in D.C., not make deals that allow even MORE spending! Tell him we do not need another Senator George Voinovich!

Here’s the thing you need to know. Right now, you are probably telling yourself you need to be reasonable. You are probably telling yourself you need to cut a deal.

I’m willing to bet you are telling yourself you should do something short term and in six more months or whenever, after everything has calmed back down, revisit the issue.

Senators, you are fooling yourselves. And I bet you know it.

We have had, in the past 30 years, 17 deficit commissions. After almost each one, taxes have gone up, but the spending cuts have never happened.

Republicans before you have been quite reasonable. So reasonable in fact that the country is on the verge of bankruptcy.

And each time, they’ve gotten to the breaking point and decided, “let’s just do something to get us some breathing room and revisit it again in a few months.”

If you don’t fight, if you decide to take deal, make a compromise, or “let cooler heads prevail” at some point in the future, you’ll be no better than those who got us to this point. You will become them.

You went to Washington because Washington is broken. Pay very careful attention to the choices you are about to make. Because I suspect many of you are about to make the same choices the people before you who broke the system made. Don’t let fear, uncertainty, and market upset govern your decision making processes.

The only way out of this mess is to think different — to actually care enough to fight.

America’s debt ceiling was quietly raised 10 times over the past 10 years. Only now has it become a national debate. The elephant in this room is not the GOP. It is the millions of Tea Party activists who have shifted the national debate to government overspending — a debate that was long overdue.

But a debate is just a debate. Words are just words. We saw how worthless words can be earlier this year.

The GOP said all the right words leading up to the 2010 midterm elections, but once the new leadership was sworn in this year, their promised spending cuts dropped from $100 billion to $31 billion and eventually to nothing.

Now it is time to back up those words with backbone.

We believe in Ronald Reagan’s adage, “Trust but verify” — but with a new twist: “You go first.”

If the president wants the debt ceiling raised and the GOP wants spending cuts, you must say: “You go first. Spending cuts first, then we’ll talk.”

The same goes for the GOP leadership. Show the millions of Tea Party Patriots you are serious about putting an end to overspending, then We the People will consider trusting you.

It has been more than six months since this Congress was sworn in. That’s half a year that could have been used to stop this government overspending. Half a year that could have been spent living within our means. Politicians from both sides have found the time to debate this issue around the clock, across all media and even on the golf course. But they have still not found a single moment to find a wasteful government program to cut?

What did our leaders find time to do these past six months?

The American people know there’s waste in the government. They see it every day from their local post office to the observance of Nancy Pelosi’s taxpayer funded jet. Just recently, we found out the National Institutes of Health is spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on studies of toenails.

The Washington Post reported in February that Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) , the one in charge of the funds, has a community college student commons center, a fire training center, a water park, a boulevard, a drive and a parkway named after him in his district in gratitude for $40 million he had brought to the area. Were those all legitimate government spending or a way to keep his 30-year career in Congress secured?

The president and his administration can’t look through their departments and find anywhere to cut. Congress can’t put a moratorium on nonessential programs until a review of the entire budget is completed? Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) seems to be the only one capable of coming up with real cuts.

Again, what have these “leaders” been doing?

Our president found time to characterize his opponents as wanting to put “a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners.” This is a strange thing to hear in this new era of civility. Then Obama threatened to push Grandma off a cliff unless he got a deal to raise the debt ceiling so he can overspend even more, saying, “I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on Aug. 3.”

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) found time to commend the president for making the case to raise the debt ceiling, saying on July 11: “I would agree with the president that the national debt limit must be raised. I’m glad he made the case for it today.”

It is clear they are not serious about cutting wasteful spending or they would have found a way to do it. When a family is on the brink of bankruptcy and can’t make ends meet, what do they do? They cut back on their spending. It’s very simple.

No, we’re not sophisticated Washington power players. We’re just Tea Party Patriots. But it seems to us that, in a debate over raising the debt ceiling, perhaps the best opening position is not to commend the person across the table for wanting to raise it.

Try our “you go first” method. If the president wants the debt ceiling raised, tell him “you go first” on cuts. If the GOP wants the Tea Party Patriots to believe they have backbone, show it to us first.

If you can’t find your backbone, you can borrow some of ours. We the People have plenty.

Meckler and Martin are the co-founders and national coordinators of America’s largest Tea Party group, the Tea Party Patriots.

The love of freedom, liberty and respect of the U.S. Constitution should be good enough reasons to stand strong against Obamacare and support the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment at the polls this November.

While Obamacare and the forced health insurance mandate was "Billed" as the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, it appears this Act will leave familes uanable to afford the bill...

A major provision of the healthcare reform law designed to prevent businesses from dropping coverage for their workers could inadvertently leave families without access to subsidized health insurance.

The problem is a huge headache for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, because it could leave families unable to buy affordable health insurance when the healthcare law requires that everyone be insured starting in 2014.

At issue is a so-called “firewall” in the law that denies subsidies to workers whose employers offer quality, affordable coverage.

The firewall applies to plans with premiums that cost less than 9.5 percent of a worker’s income. If a worker has to dole out more than that amount to buy coverage, the employer coverage is considered unaffordable and the worker is eligible for subsidies to buy coverage on the new exchanges.

Initially, advocates thought the threshold also applied to family coverage. If premium costs paid to cover a worker’s family cost 20 percent of a worker’s income, for example, the worker and his or her family should be eligible for subsidies.

This means the costs to an employee for covering his or her family could be too high to afford for many working families.

“If you’ve got employer-based coverage that’s affordable for the employee only,” Guyer said, “the family is expected to take the employer coverage even if it“s totally unaffordable and no one in the family is eligible for the exchange subsidies.”

The glitch is causing heartburn for advocates who worry that it could leave thousands of children and spouses uninsured and subject to penalties for not having insurance.

To learn more about the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment and how you can help stop the forced health insurance mandate in Obamacare from hurting your family, please click here.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Confirming President Obama's fear-mongering and fibs that he may have to hold back Social Security checks from going out next month if the debt ceiling is not raised is Chief Actuary for the Social Security Administration, Stephen Goss....

During this morning’s Budget Committee meeting, Congressman Huelskamp asked Stephen Goss, Chief Actuary for the Social Security Administration, to explain how the Obama administration could withhold Social Security checks to American seniors. The question was prompted by a statement by President Obama that he could not guarantee that Social Security checks would be mailed August 3, 2011, if Congress fails to increase the debt limit.

Yesterday, Congressman Huelskamp issued a statement noting that it is irresponsible for the President to use seniors on Social Security as pawns to leverage his point in the debt limit negotiations.

Mr. Goss told Congressman Huelskamp: “The responsibility of the Social Security Administration per se, my boss, Commissioner Astrue, is to in fact determine how much in the way of benefit payments people are supposed to receive. We send that information actually over to the Department of the Treasury. They are the ones who actually send out the payments, whether it’s electronic funds, transfers, or check.”

Friday, July 15, 2011

Make no mistake - this fight to cut spending is just as important as our fight against Obamacare! Budgets, spending, and debt may not feel as personal as health care, but it is! We've seen how personal it's gotten in Greece, and we know what happens when a nation crumbles under the weight of its bureaucracy.

Because we simply can't afford to be making trips to DC to rally around the Capitol, Tea Party Patriots (www.teapartypatriots.org) have been hosting a weeklong Virtual Rally. Up until the day of the Debt Ceiling vote will will continue pressuring members of Congress to vote NO on raising the debt ceiling.

Think about this: To pay for the overspending that government has already overspent, $45,000 in debt is now strapped to the back of each child born in America. To pay for the overspending that government has committed to overspend in the future, but has yet made no provision to pay for, each American household is now on the hook for $528,000.

Action Items

Republican Freshmen

Call GOP freshman today. You can call just one, just the ones from Ohio or all of them. It's up to you. For a list of all the freshmen in Congress, please click here. Ohio freshmen are listd below. Please post on their Facebook page too.

Ohio Freshman Congressman, Rep. Jim Renacci (OH-16), who supports raising the debt ceiling, has a poll on his homepage asking if the debt ceiling should be raised. Please go to Rep Renacci's page and vote against raising the debt ceiling. (Click here to vote in poll)

Meckler was firmly against raising the debt ceiling, and dismissed consequences of it not passing. On President Obama's contention that Social Security checks might not go out, Meckler contended: "That's just simply a lie. There is plenty of revenue to pay our Social Security obligations. There's plenty of revenue to pay our debt, our interest on the debt obligations. If the president and Secretary Geithner choose not to pay Social Security, they'll be held responsible. They'll be held responsible by recipients, and they'll be held responsible by the American public."

He provided no citations for his contention, but instead claimed that "there's enough money to pay for Social Security, to pay the basic entitlement programs, and to pay for critical services in the United States of America."

As we sit on the edge of financial doom of our country, please be aware -- the GOP freshmen from Ohio that campaigned on fiscal responsibility and limited government -- are showing they are only fiscally responsible to Speaker John Boehner and are limiting their actions to supporting the D.C. status quo.

Make no mistake, the tough talking headlines from both sides regarding the debt ceiling are nothing more than political posturing. It is nothing more than which party will hold the collective power over "We the People"! We know for fact, the GOP does not expect the Cut, Cap & Balance Amendment to pass the House. In fact, they are so convinced of this, they are not even bothering to whip the vote.

Besides showing a complete lack of leadership on Speaker Boehner's part, this shows they really have no intentions of trying to pass CC&B. Furthermore, CC&B does NOT stop the debt ceiling from being raised! It only sets conditions to AGAIN raise the debt ceiling. Raising the debt ceiling on promises of what a future congress will or will not do is not only reckless & irresponsible -- it only kicks the can down the road -- AGAIN. But this time -- it may be kicking the can off a cliff of financial disaster.

CC&B, if passed in the House, then the Senate, then must be signed into law by President Obama, and being a Constitutional Amendment, STILL has to be ratified by 2/3rds of the states. (Think about how long it took to ratify the U.S. Constitution!)

With Ohio sending 5 GOP freshmen to Congress and Speaker Boehner being from here, it is the responsibility of patriots from OH to not only speak out, but to speak out the loudest on the feelings of disgust and betrayal being expressed from fellow groups across the country!﻿

Please find below action alert items being done as a concerted effort by Tea Party, 9/12 and liberty minded groups across the country. (Please forward these action items to your email lists, family and friends) .

·Use your Facebook and Twitter accounts to make arguments for cutting spending so that job creators can actually create jobs and not cave on any "deal."

·Inform friends about this crucial fight and invite them to take action as well. These negotiations are putting the fate of our nation on the line. We must engage as many people as possible.

Call targeted members (see list below) of Congress and your own member. We will send you the target lists with phone numbers as well as facts to share with these members. Let's melt those phone lines!

Wednesday

Social media blitz day. Let the targeted members of Congress know what you think by posting on their Facebook pages and tweeting to them. We'll send you the links to their pages and their Twitter ID's.